Saturday, May 14, 2016

Racist Russian Sports Fans Pose an Even Bigger Problem than Doping

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 14 – The exposure of
how Putin’s FSB helped Russian athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs at
the Sochi Olympiad is sparking calls to ban them from the Rio Olympiad. But
there is another problem that should cause the international community to strip
Russia of the right to host the 2018 World Cup – increasingly racist behavior
by Russian fans.

Not only would such an action strike
at one the key ways Vladimir Putin has used “bread and circuses” to boost his
authority, but it would send a clear message that the world is not going to
tolerate the kind of vicious racism not only on view at Russian sporting events
but quite often not blocked or even overlooked by Russian officials.

And there is an even more compelling
reason to take such steps against Russia and racist Russian fans: all too
often, as rights activists have documented, racist football fans contribute to
and draw some of their own strength from racist extremists and political
movements in Russian society at large

Yesterday, the SOVA analytic center
which monitors racist actions in Russian society published a review of these
events, a release prompted by the recent attack on Central Asians by Russian football
fans who wanted to have “a whites’ only car” on the Moscow subway (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2016/05/d34534/).

“The
deep and firm connections between the milieu of aggressive football fans and
organizations of right-wing radicals has been tracked already for a long time,”
SOVA says. And This connection is “not surprising” given that both want to use
racism to unite their side against those they view as aliens.

“Of
course,” the monitoring organization says, “far from all football fans are
racist, and the level of interest in football in each group of neo-Nazis and
each participant in such groups varies. But numerous examples show that namely the
right radicals influence football fans more than others” and that “often”
racist football fans take part in neo-Nazi actions far from stadiums.

The
Russian authorities have taken some measures to rein in fans and especially to
punish those who link up with neo-Nazi groups, SOVA says; and as a result, the
number of such crimes has declined over the last year, something Russian sports
officials have proudly celebrated and even claimed that they have “put an end”
to racism among Russian football fans.

“But
the recent case involving attacks on migrants in a Moscow metro car shows that this
is far from being the case,” SOVA concludes.And while it does not raise the issue, those who want to stand against
racism and fascism as well should put the Russian government on notice that
unless it does more, Moscow will lose the right to host the 2018 World Cup.